The Sweetest Devotion (Tangled Affairs #1)

Chapter 1

1

“Stop pouting.”

No matter how many times my mother made this demand, I couldn’t stop myself from fidgeting and scowling. My stomach was in knots, my palms were sweating, my skin crawled, and I couldn’t concentrate on anything else.

This wasn’t what I wanted.

On paper, I had it all with no means to complain. And really, there was very little for me to complain about. Born with a diamond-encrusted spoon in my mouth, brought up among the upper echelon, and having attended a decent school for a time, it wasn’t a lie that any problems I may have had would be deduced as “First World Problems.”

I had never wanted for anything. Didn’t know what it was like to go to bed hungry or worry about choosing between paying rent or a light bill. I had never suffered a day in my life. So why was I currently in the midst of a grave mental breakdown?

It was like something out of a soap opera.

My parents had done the unthinkable: they’d gone behind my back and sold me to the Devil himself. And tonight, they were hosting my engagement party.

All of the who’s who of Hampton Hills were filling my parents’ lavish home to celebrate this joyous occasion—only, there was no joy to be had on my part.

My ring was gaudy, ostentatious, tacky—whatever you wanted to call the huge diamond my new fiancé had gotten me. A fifteen-carat cushion-cut ring set in platinum marred the fourth finger on my left hand, regrettably.

None of this was what I wanted.

My father was Damon Nichols, co-founder of The Residence Hotel hospitality empire. And in order to solidify his latest contract with Las Vegas casino Cartier, he promised something he couldn’t afford. Something I had no say in.

My father had fallen ill, this new deal was potentially his last as chairman of the Nichols she wasn’t the one being forced to marry a stranger. Her father hadn’t manipulated her into marrying against her own choosing as a “dying wish,” and for the good of the family business.

It wasn’t that I didn’t know Cain—well, I didn’t—but I didn’t want him.

He’d asked me out twice before and I’d turned him down both times. Once, because I was dating my ex, Gaius Jones. And the second time because I simply wasn’t interested. There was something about Cain I couldn’t put my finger on, something that told me to run the other way. Something… wrong .

He came out of nowhere. The long-lost heir to James Carter’s fortune. James had been the previous CEO and founder of the Cartier Casino in Las Vegas, a single property that was easily the most successful gambling and entertainment resort in Sin City. When he’d died suddenly at the age of sixty-eight, leaving behind a widow who hadn’t borne him any children, many were stunned when Cain came forward as the sole inheritor to Cartier holdings.

His mother was unknown, but through two DNA tests and legal binding from James himself, it was proven without a doubt that Cain was now in charge of the Cartier. No one knew him or where he came from, and that made men like my father uneasy. Cain was a wild card. The youngest billionaire in the owner’s box.

He was already on the cover of Forbes and Fortune before he was twenty-five.

Now at twenty-seven, Cain was the most eligible bachelor on the West Coast. Everyone wanted a piece of him. Extremely private, he’d only been seen once or twice with a woman, some beauty who was linked to a modeling career or some form of entertainment.

And now he was linked to me.

I didn’t know much about the Bible, but I knew it was written that one of the most perfect angels turned out to be Satan. And considering Cain, I could believe that. He was young looking, mysterious, and intimidating in his Tom Ford suits, but there was no mistaking the air of wrongness about him.

My father had come across his wealth honestly: school, hard work, and fair deals. Rumor had it, Cain’s father had done so through brutal measures: dirty money, blood, and lies. James might have been a cheat, but there was something about Cain that threatened more.

My father was co-owner of a five-diamond hotel kingdom. He was ultra-selective of who he let into his circle. With whom he considered doing business. Knowing all this, Cain still turned him down when my father had first approached him. It was as if the exclusivity didn’t even faze him.

Or, business wasn’t what truly interested him to begin with.

I’d said no when Cain had asked me out previously, and now with my father gravely ill, he’d weaseled his way into finally getting what he wanted. Two birds, one stone. My father got to have his precious joint casino and hotel, and Cain got to have me. Everyone won.

Except me .

These types of things weren’t exactly unheard of in our upper-crust world. Arranged marriages came with the territory of being an heir to multimillion-dollar companies. I’d seen it happen a few times to girls I knew in passing, who ran in similar circles. Rings were exchanged, hands were shaken, and business ties were set. Nobody batted an eye.

Still, I never saw this happening to me .

“I can’t,” I let out as I pleaded with my mother. “Don’t make me do this.”

She pursed her lips where she stood beside me, primping her own appearance in my vanity mirror. “It’s a done deal. Your father has never asked you for anything, Kennedy. You think he wanted to get sick like this? You think it’s easy for him to watch all that he built from the sidelines as he lies bedridden? All he wants is this project to go through. It’s not like we signed you up to marry a monster.”

But they had. I couldn’t prove it, sure, but one good look at Cain and I just knew he wasn’t the hero.

My father and Cain had made their deal, shook on it, and signed contracts. I could say no and lose everything, my family and the trust they’d set up for me since birth. I’d be nameless and penniless. Not to mention homeless. There was no way I could continue living in my penthouse suite at Hampton Hills’s local Residence Hotel.

It wasn’t fair.

My mother stood from the mirror, turning and facing me. “Now, I do believe we’ve kept your guests waiting long enough.”

These weren’t my guests. No one I truly cared for was here in attendance. My only friend, my best friend Jadyn, was at her home in Bedford Heights. She called bullshit on this whole thing when news hit me a week ago. She would’ve come in moral support, but I didn’t want her to play a role in this bizarre movie of my life.

I was sure Stephanie and Elyse were downstairs somewhere. They were my parent-approved friends—surface-level associates I only knew through my father’s business companions.

My mother didn’t wait for me to collect my bearings. She looped her arm through mine and tugged me out of the room. The cool air in the hall did little to alleviate the fever of anxiety swelling my body. I stumbled as my mother dragged me down our marbled staircase where already I could see guests here and there on the first level. One of the dual front doors was open. More people were arriving. The late evening outside was a too-tempting escape route.

There was no time for that as my mother put on her best smile, jerked me upright, and began putting on a show.

She wasn’t completely heartless. When news struck of my father’s deteriorating health, she’d been delirious with grief and denial. He was the love of her life, and she wasn’t ready to part with him. But in Hampton Hills, you didn’t let your true emotions show.

“Oh my gosh, you look so beautiful, Kenn!” Elyse gushed as we reached our great room where a bevy of guests were. “I still can’t believe you never told us you were seeing Cain Carter.”

Elyse and Stephanie were good for light conversation whenever we were at an event together, but I saved all personal details of my life for Jadyn. Someone I could trust not to take a bullhorn and broadcast my innermost thoughts to the media.

“We wanted to keep it between us,” I lied through my teeth. “After Gaius and all the social media last time, we figured this was best.”

It wasn’t a total lie. At the time I’d been seeing Gaius, rising rookie running back for the Long Beach Sharks, the media had been all over us. We were “relationship goals” for many as we were often spotted leaving places like Nobu or amongst a Black Hollywood party. I definitely wanted my next relationship to be more private and intimate—instead, I got something much worse as I took in the large gathering that had come to celebrate my engagement.

Elyse nodded sympathetically. “I don’t blame you.”

“So sad your dad couldn’t be here, Kenn,” Stephanie said as she reached out and caressed my goose-bump-littered arm.

No one outside of my family knew my father was sick. To the public, he was simply away on business, unable to attend this heinous little soiree, but sent his best wishes.

I paid Stephanie no mind as I set eyes on Him.

Standing amid two men clad in expensive suits, nursing champagne-filled glasses, was Cain. He didn’t smile. Only nodded as he listened to whatever it was that they were saying. In the little time that I’d known of him, I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him smile. Not even in those off-guard shots I’d seen online of him escorting a date from a restaurant or event.

Cain ran the Cartier Casino in Las Vegas, but he lived here in southern California. There was the off chance he’d be a busy spouse where I’d only have to see him once every few months. Honest wishful thinking, really. He’d finally gotten his hooks in me and I knew he wasn’t letting me go.

“It’s time,” my mother leaned close to whisper in my ear. “Don’t mess this up. Your father’s counting on you.”

With a nudge in my back, my mother sent me forth to go and greet my fiancé.

We hadn’t spoken at all since my father summoned me home to his room to tell me the news. Cain hadn’t even done the traditional asking on one knee. The morning after my father had told me the worst news of my life, there was a knock at my suite and a courier delivered the ring with a simple note from Cain reading, Yours, C. Carter .

The two men ambled off and Cain was now alone. I had his complete attention and that only heightened my sheer terror.

The closer I got to him, the more I wanted to disappear into the crowd around us.

Cain stood back, observing me knowingly and expectantly. His black eyes as cold and hollow as his presence before me.

Dark. Foreboding. Soulless. My fiancé.

I came to a timid stop in front of him, unsure whether to speak or shake hands.

Tall, handsome, with skin as dark and brown as my own, Cain was aesthetically pleasing to the eye, I wouldn’t lie, but the lack of warmth around him was startling. No, I would not touch him.

Cain peered down at me, taking me in. His face was indifferent, almost as if he couldn’t care less about this party or our engagement.

“There’s our happy couple!” A photographer jumped out of nowhere, armed with a camera to snap our photo. Journalists and bloggers were also in attendance to take note of our magical pairing. Cain was a beloved bachelor, and I was Hampton Hills’s princess, known for my fashionable influence when spotted out in LA, my last public relationship with an NFL player, and my being the daughter of one of the most successful Black men in the United States. Someone online had already dubbed our impending nuptials as “the Royal Wedding.”

Being a Nichols, it came with the territory. We were the premier family of the West Coast. We caused a spectacle everywhere we went. To the public eye, it was only right that I marry the youngest billionaire in the boys’ club. With his dashing good looks and my stunning beauty, we were a match made in a dazzling haze of mergers and acquisitions.

Cain’s arm came around me so we could pose for the camera.

I studied his hand where it rested on my hip, taking note of a single long-stemmed rose tattoo stretching the length of his hand, from his wrist to his pinky. The stem held a few thorns and the ink was done in black.

Gazing up at my fiancé, I wondered if he had any other tattoos.

The photographer snapped our photo where I smiled stiffly as my body brushed against Cain’s. We raised champagne flutes and toasted to our engagement, posed with my mother, and alone as a duo.

“Can we expect a big wedding?” a journalist from some magazine asked as soon as the photographer had stolen every smile he could get from me.

My mother was behind her, nodding at me, telling me with her eyes that everyone was counting on me.

My voice, nervous, weak, came out of me on autopilot. “Oh, I definitely am going to need a year to plan all that I have in mind.”

“Ooh, can we expect something local, or remote?” the blonde journalist pressed further, her green eyes bouncing from me to Cain and back. “I love destination weddings.”

Cain’s hand lay heavy on my hip, a boulder keeping me in place. To the journalist, I forced out another smile as I pretended to hold my finger to my lips as if I had a secret. “Wait and see.”

She bought it. They all did.

As annoying as pretending was, it saved me from the feat of facing my fiancé one-on-one. But that only lasted so long.

With the party well under way, I was finally alone with Cain and there was no escaping where his dark eyes were locked on me.

He didn’t smile. He didn’t touch me. He didn’t break that empty mask of his. “Do you like your ring?”

His voice was firm, commanding, and surprisingly warm.

“I’m sure it cost you a lot of money,” I responded.

Cain looked at my ring before meeting my gaze once more. “That’s not what I asked you.”

I swallowed. “It’s a lovely gesture, thank you.”

A muscle in his jaw ticked as he nodded, staring down at me silently. I still hadn’t answered his question, and something told me he was practicing his utmost patience just then.

A gust of cool wind cut into our tension as a figure approached Cain. A man in an ill-fitting gray suit went and leaned into Cain’s ear, whispering something I couldn’t hear. I’d seen this man a few times around Cain, one of the few men he kept close to him who did not look like the regular business type I was used to.

Cain kept his attention on me as he listened to his friend speak. And then, in a coded manner, he patted the man’s back twice before dismissing him.

Cain thumbed at his full bottom lip as his eyes ran from my neckline to my feet. “I have to step out for a phone call. Will you excuse me?”

Of course I would. “Y-Yes.”

He blinked at my stutter, but said nothing as he walked around me and disappeared.

I heaved a huge sigh and wiggled my fingers, feeling a weight lift from my shoulders.

My mother was far across the room at the fireplace, entertaining old friends of hers. A Congratulations Kennedy & Cain banner hung from one wall to the other as gold and silver balloons floated in the air. The room was bursting with chatter and soft classical music.

I was glad my mother had forgone an official dinner, and instead opted for alcoholic beverages and appetizers. Men and women in red vests and white dress shirts were buzzing around the room and house, hoisting platters of cucumber sandwiches, gourmet stuffed mushrooms, smoked salmon and rye, and little strawberry shortcake desserts.

There was so much going on, so much noise, so many people, so little time to think before I jumped into action.

“Kennedy!” Influencers and other notables called my name as I made a beeline for the exit.

Trying not to draw too much attention to my panic attack, I stopped when approached, smiled and showed off my ring when needed, and lied about my secret fairy tale romance with Cain.

With my mother distracted, I slipped out of the room and headed back up to the second floor to my room and locked myself in.

In the semi safety that was my old room, I began to pace, weighing my options, questioning the sanity of this whole charade.

I couldn’t do this. My father was the one sick, but it was me who felt as if I were dying inside.

My mother would kill me once she got her hands on me, but I had to get out of here, away from this party, away from this engagement—away from Cain.

Because my mother didn’t trust me, I knew there was GPS tracking on my phone. I hated to have to leave without it, but I couldn’t make a getaway and leave a trail of breadcrumbs.

I had nowhere to go. But anywhere felt better than here.

My mind was made up. I grabbed my clutch, tossed my cell phone on my canopy bed, and stepped out of my room. People were lingering around, having snuck up to the second floor for quieter conversation. No one paid me any notice as I walked with haste down toward the foyer. In a second, I was out the front door and into the night.

My patent leather nude Christian Louboutin heels didn’t fail me as I raced out to the valet without looking back.